To His Knees
by HaloFin17
Summary: Practically a continuation of my first Troy fic. Achilles grieves alone for Patroclus. NO slash. Rated for mentions of blood. Please enjoy, and feel free to review!


**Summary: **Practically a continuation of my first Troy fic. Achilles grieves alone for Patroclus. NO slash. Please enjoy, and feel free to review!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Troy or the Iliad - they're way out of my league.

**Author's Note: **My thanks to Torilei and Whilom for their interest and encouragement while I was writing this fic! Their contagious enthusiasm was a huge motivator. I love you guys, hope this fic doesn't let you down! As Whilom's mentioned before me, it is difficult to capture the legendary "Rage of Achilles," but I've done my best. The whole thing was pretty much inspired by the very last line. Enjoy!

**To His Knees**

Golden sun. White sea foam. Turquoise waters. Brown sand. Red blood. Black rage. Achilles did not see the morning sun that beat down upon his head, nor did he hear the crash of rolling waves. He did not feel the cool of the water as it dripped from his skin, nor the shifting of the sand beneath his feet.

All he saw was blood, so fresh it glistened sickly in the sun. All he heard were screams of agony, so loud no roar from the surf could possibly drown them out. And all he felt was rage, an dark anger fueled by all the hatred the gods had ever lent to man.

The godlike son of Peleus turned at last from the sea and made his way back up the beachhead, eyes set in a stony glare. He lifted his gaze and easily located his target. Eudorous. The Myrmidon commander's right hand man had finally risen to his feet, but he remained rooted in the spot where his lord had struck him.

Achilles approached, his face impassive. "Eudorous," he called, and the other man responded immediately, but whether out of habit or of fear, it was difficult to say.

"My lord?"

"Where is he?" The great warrior's face was still unreadable, but Eudorous understood. How could he not? He had been there. He had seen everything.

More tears rose to his crystal blue eyes unbidden, but Eudorous furiously blinked them back. He would not break down in front of his lord and commander now, not even after all this. Swallowing hard and forcing his voice to remain level, he answered.

"We put him in his tent."

It was a brief reply, but Eudorous dared say no more. Achilles had the information he needed, and he whirled away from his second in command without another word, storming off to find what he sought. The normally crowded, chaotic beach was mysteriously still and silent wherever he approached, yet the hanging tension in the air was almost palpable, like an oppressive heat no seaborne breeze could dispel.

The greatest of Greek warriors at last reached his destination and halted. He stared unblinking outside the simple dwelling, almost as though he could see past the tent canvas to whatever awaited within. Achilles drew a deep breath to steady himself, shaking so slightly that none save perhaps his goddess mother might have noticed. But still, he trembled. He, whom Ajax had called "as fearless as the gods."

_The gods have never known such pain as I do now. _Such were the thoughts of glorious Achilles as he bolstered his courage to move forward and slowly entered the tent. Leaving the glare of the sun so abruptly, his eyes required a moment to adjust to the dim light inside the shelter. But once he could again see clearly, the noble warrior stood perfectly still, frozen in place and time by the sight that greeted him.

Lying on a low bed of furs was the unmoving figure of his cousin. Achilles' throat constricted, for even breath itself no longer seemed to matter, and he was torn between the warring desires to stare and to look away. He chose to stare. His eyes fixed almost instantly on the boy's throat, and the still-wet blood that stained his skin.

Achilles noted numbly that the corpse still wore his own armor – armor that should have shone in the sun like a beacon of hope to comrades and a flare of warning for all enemies. Instead, it was now covered with blood, smeared into dullness by the dust of Troy.

Clearly, Eudorous and the other Myrmidons had done nothing to make the body more presentable. And it was well for them that they did not. Only Achilles himself would have the honor of cleansing this precious body, of washing away the pristine life-blood of one who had died so innocent, so young.

Almost unconsciously, Achilles stepped forward until he stood directly above the child, still staring down, still helpless in a dizzying maze of grief that had yet to be expressed. A grief from which he knew there would be no relief. His cousin whom he had loved as both a brother and a son was dead. What hope has man without love? Achilles had no hope. It had fallen to the dust, struck down by a fatal blow that never should have been. The boy was gone, and he would never be able to say 'good-bye.'

The realization was more painful than any wound dealt by the weapons of men. Achilles groaned deep down inside, tearing his eyes away at long last and squeezing them shut in anguish as he remembered. He remembered their final conversation, the last exchange between them in this world. Oh gods, what were his words, his final words? What was the last thing he said to his beloved cousin before the boy gave his all too young life for a cause the mighty Achilles had never believed in from the start?

_Someone has to lose._

The words echoed suddenly in his mind, torturing him with an agony he would have never thought possible. Someone did indeed lose. But why him? Why a mere child who possessed more honor and faithfulness than all the kings of Greece combined? Why did he have to lose? There was one answer, and one answer only. This atrocity had occurred because he, whom the whole world deemed invincible, had allowed it. In his blind pride, he had let his cousin take the blow that should have been his alone. And now it was too late.

"Patroclus…"

Tears sprung forth at last from the vaults where they had long been bound, and Achilles dropped to the coarse sand beside his cousin, taking the cold, lifeless hand in his own and remembering in horror it had been warm and strong not so long ago. Not long at all. But it might as well have been an eternity. For it was too late now – too late to say farewell and plead that he was sorry.

The golden-haired Greek bowed his head over the hand to which he desperately clung and wept freely, pouring forth the tears that tasted bitter as they fell on his lips. But none so bitter as the sorrow that now racked his broken spirit. The only consolation was in this: that as surely as his cousin had ever lived, blood would be shed on his account. There would be vengeance.

Achilles son of Peleus bent his knee to no king and paid homage to no god. Yet all it took was a boy with a heart full of undying love and devotion to bring the greatest warrior in the world to his knees.


End file.
